(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for identifying a user at a close range and an information providing system and method using the same, and more particularly to a close-range user identification system and an information providing system and method using the same, in which at least one user located at a close range visible to a client's naked eyes is searched and identified through a network or close-range communication directing, and opened information of the at least one identified user or a location-based advertisement is given to the at least one searched user.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In an Internet or mobile Internet service including a social networking service (SNS) that a user basically has to subscribe, a conventional location-tracking type, i.e. location-based social networking system (SNS) and social dating system provides user information in units of km because of an error range of a global positioning system (GPS) and a limit of a location search technology, and it is therefore impossible to receive opened information from or provide advertisement to a specific user located at a close range, i.e. within range of vision since too many users are searched when the location-tracking type is applied.
That is, the location tracking system based on the GPS finds a user's location within an error range of a mounted GPS chipset. The error range is 300 m in case of a low-price system, and 60 m in case of a general cellular phone. Thus, the error range is too wide to receive and provide information about a user located within 10˜20 m visible to naked eyes.
In addition, the current location tracking technology, in which locations of users are compared in a server based on the GPS, provides not only information within the error range excessively broadened with respect to time and space, i.e. information about too many persons and information containing location errors but also information items of persons previously recorded in the server before updating the location storage server when a user wants to receive information items of a person within his/her reach. For example, If a user is walking in a street and location tracking cycle and update cycle of the user data in server does not match, the user already moved to another location.
In this case, it is impossible to update the server in real time in order to accept many users due to problems of power consumption of the GPS, real-time traffic between a server and the users, real-time change, update lead time of a database. Further, since not the current or real-time records but the past records are compared with one another, user engagement is not useful. In addition, the current GPS chipset mounted to a smart phone has an error range of 300 m or wider in light of its performance if wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) for correcting a location is not on, and it is therefore impossible to provide user engagement within the same space at the same time where humans can recognize each other with naked eyes.
For instance, too many users are searched when a user wants to receive another user's opened information (a contact number, E-mail, social network identification, or the like agreed to be published) to satisfy his/her curiosity about people with special preferences in a specific place such as a museum, a bookstore, a gallery, etc. where scores to hundreds of people are searched within 1 km. Consequently, it is impossible to specify an interesting subject within a user's reach and receive the opened information from the specified subject, and thus there is a limit to practically achieve the concept of the user engagement that takes count of the real-time and the close range.